ful emotion, or tragic woe, who obviously, yet quite unconsciously, were sensitive to the dramatic quality in the situation, and thrilled with the power of presenting heights and depths of feeling beyond the reach of stage or art to equal.

We are not in such great danger today of posing as actors before men, to win their praise, as we are of the more subtle tendency to pose before ourselves. And the remedy lies in turning inward upon ourselves those powers of criticism which, as applied to others, we find so discriminating and infallible.

It is probable that the great body of men pride themselves on not being hypocrites. They escape the danger, as they think, by making no religious professions at all. "I am a man who knocks about the world. I am not worse than many others. But I make no profession of religion. I am not seen in the high seats of the synagogue. At least I am not a hypocrite." This is what Bishop Gore calls the pharisaism of the publican. "Pharisaism is being satisfied with ourselves. And the pharisaism of the man who makes no religious professions is at least as bad as

the pharisaism of the man who abounds in them."

You and I who cling to orthodoxy in creed think it a terrible thing that any should depart from belief in the Faith once for all delivered to the saints. But the corresponding danger in orthodoxy is that, priding ourselves on possessing the true faith, we cling to it as a bare intellectual abstraction, and do not strive to apply its tremendous affirmations concerning God and Christ and mankind to the opportunities of daily life. This is the most damaging of all hypocrisies.

"Cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to pull out the mote that is in thy brother's eye."

IX.

PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN VIRTUES.

Now abideth faith, hope, charity.—I CORINTHIANS xiii, 13.

S. PAUL names here the three great virtues which Christianity invented. He does not disparage other virtues. He does not imply that there were no human virtues in the world before Christianity. But before the time of Christ there could be no faith, no hope, no charity, in the world, in the Christian sense. These three are called theological virtues. They have to do with our relation to God, as revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ. They are virtues that are divine gifts, rather than natural acquirements, though the gift of them is open to all who earnestly desire and diligently seek them. Faith is the gift of God by which we believe all that He has revealed to us. Hope is the gift of God by which we expect that God will give us all things necessary to salvation. Charity is the gift of God, by which we truly love God, and our neighbor. These

three theological virtues, in the Christian sense, are so defined-Faith, Hope, and Charity. In this sense they are the invented virtues of Christianity.1 They are peculiar to Christianity and did not exist in the world before the time of Christ.

Yet there is no disrespect to Christianity in admitting that even without these three virtues without faith, without hope, without charity, in the Christian sense a very high and admirable standard of life is possible. There were noble souls, before the time of Christ, who lived splendid lives without these virtues. We call them pagans, but there were great pagans, pagans at whose feet the world still sits. There are admirable lives being lived today without these virtues. Such, though they know it not, perhaps, are modern pagans, more or less influenced by Christianity, but pagans, in that they lack the distinctively Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

For there are other virtues, upon which the practical moral life of all ages has hinged, that are not distinctively Christian. They are called the cardinal virtues-Temperance, Prudence, Justice, and Fortitude.

1 G. K. Chesterton; sermon idea from Rev. Paul Birdsall, M. A.

Solomon the Wise is credited with having discovered, nearly a thousand years before Christ, that all life hinges upon these four virtues, where he is quoted in the book of Wisdom-"If a man love righteousness," he says, "her labors are virtues: for she teacheth temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude: which are such things, as men can have nothing more profitable in their life." The experience of all the finest souls produced by paganism testifies to the truth of Solomon's words, nay, all the centuries of Christian doctrine and experience confirm them. The cardinal virtues of practical life are temperance and prudence, justice and fortitude.

These are, in fact, the virtues which are developed in human life by a process of natural evolution. They grow out of the best human experience. In the last analysis, they have a basis of religion, for they imply the existence of some ultimate standard and ideal reality, quite beyond logical demonstration. But they are not necessarily, or always consciously, the product of Christian religion, or of any religion. The cardinal virtues are more or less truly the natural virtues of